Day 15 - Guatemala

Great day!  I am working with Hearts In Motion (H.I.M), an organization that serves the district of Zacapa, Guatemala.  I am spending my time with a group of 24 physical therapy and occupational therapy students from Grand Valley State University in Michigan.  I am serving as a clinical instructor for them while I am here.  This morning, we split our group.  Most of the group ran an outpatient clinic in a very primitive (picture below) clinica in the village of San Agustin.  I went further up the mountain (for Leavenworth folks, think the forest service road up to 8-mile or Colchuck) with a smaller group to a nutrition center for malnourished babies.  The center is run by Sister Edna and one other woman.  Two other women help with the cleaning and building upkeep.  They have 13 babies and one 8 year old child with severe cerebral palsy who Sister Edna has been raising since she found her as a baby.  At times, they have had up to 18 babies living there.  The babies are identified in the mountain villages and are taken to the hospital for nourishment and then live at the center until they are well enough to return to their families.  This is quite an undertaking since they are often the youngest of 9 or 10 children and the mother must go with them to the hospital.  Other villagers must take care of the other children or sometimes H.I.M. will pay the father to stay home from the fields so the mom can travel.  The moms don't stay with them at the center and are not able to visit due to having so many responsibilities at home and a lack of transportation.  We performed developmental screenings on the babies and one group worked with the older girl.  We spent the rest of the afternoon at the outpatient clinic in San Agustin.  I was the translator for my group.  Boy, am I rusty!  We saw everything from a boy with a spinal cord injury to a woman with a very recent stroke to low back pain to machete wounds to old gun shot wounds to knee arthritis.  Overall, we saw 40 patients at the outpatient clinic. 

 Loading up supplies before heading to the clinics

 

The clinic in San Agustin

The clinic in action

 

My students evaluating Jaime at the nutrition center.  She is two years old.  She can crawl, but does not pull up to standing or walk.

 

Julio, who is 10 months old and meeting most of his developmental mile markers

 

One of the PT students taking a break.  The girl in the pink shirt is a college student with us this week.  She supervised and played with all of the other babies while we performed our evaluations.

 

I don't even know this little sweetheart's name.  He attached himself to me after I was finished with my evaluations and decided he liked me.  He clung to me and struggled when I tried to put him down when it was time to leave.  I could still hear him crying as I walked out the front door to our van.  Heartbreaking.

 

We walked up to the church in San Agustin when we finished clinic.